Zenphoto Gallery FAQ

How do I show galleries using Zenphoto Gallery?

Just use the shortcode creator via the well know image adding dialogue.

You can of course add one of the shortcodes by hand to your posts and pages:

  • [zenalbum album=name] inserts a gallery for the album named name
  • [zenlatest] inserts a gallery with the latest images (or whatever you configured Zenphoto to push to the feed).
  • [zengallery]album1,file1.jpg;album2,file2.jpg[/zengallery] inserts a gallery containing the specified images.

All shortcodes understand the optional argument number=k which limits the number of shown images to k. If it is not provided,
all images are shown. So, for example [zenalbum album=birthday-party number=5] inserts the first five images that occur in the feed of your birthday album.

Using [zengallery], you can specify image names and descriptions by just adding them to the shortcode’s content: [zengallery]album,image,name,description text[/zengallery]. While image descriptions may contain commas, the other fields may not. You can use HTML in descriptions if need be. If you want to show only pictures from one album, you might want to set the album for all images: [zengallery album=albumname]img1;img2[/zengallery]. Take care to leave out the album name inside the shortcode.

How do I show single images using Zenphoto Gallery?

Just use the shortcode creator via the well know image adding dialogue or enter [zenimage album=name image=file.jpg] to insert the specified image.

Can I get more finegrained control?

Sure. You can override all gallery and image settings via shortcode parameters. That is:

  • link=(page|album|image|none) sets were links go to,
  • title=(none|name|desc) sets what is shown as image title,
  • caption=(none|name|desc) sets what is shown as image caption,
  • width=W sets the maximum image width to W pixels and
  • clip=WxH sets the dimensions to clip images to (width and height in pixels).

Note that specifying width turns clipping off in any case.

In case of the three gallery shortcodes, you can also use those:

  • shown=(earliest|latest|random) sets which of the provided images to show if there are more than you have space for and
  • row=k sets the maximum number of images per row to k.

What to use as album name?

You have to use the string Zenphoto uses in its URLs, with or without slashes at front or end, e.g. album/subalbum.

What to use as image name?

You also have to use what Zenphoto uses in its URLs including file format, e.g. image.jpg. Do not include .php as Zenphoto appends it to image page URLs.

I see the wrong images!

I assume you have entered the correct album name. If so, check your RSS settings in Zenphoto. You can change image order there. Also, the Zenphoto Gallery setting “Shown images” might be set in an unintended way; you can override it using the shortcode parameter shown (has to have values latest, earliest or random).

Images are smaller than I ordered!

Again, check your RSS settings in Zenphoto. You can change the thumbnail size the feeds use there. Zenphoto Gallery uses those thumbnails, not the full images, and won’t scale up to avaid bad looks.

What is that rel attribute for links good for?

There are WordPress plugins that implement nice image viewers with Javascript. These plugins recognize a link they should handle via the rel attribute. For instance, for Shadowbox you have to put shadowbox;player=img; in the configuration field to have direct image links handled by Shadowbox.
In order to find out what to put there for other plugins, just open the source of any post where you know your image viewer plugin works and look at the corresponding links. If it does use something different from rel, well, you cannot use it at this time.

Why that JSON stuff?

I was too lazy to parse RSS/XML to get the little information I need for this plugin. Since I considered uploading an additional file to your Zenphoto installation a minor effort, I saw no problem.
Of course, this prevents you from using the shortcodes [zenlatest] and [zenalbum] with some Zenphoto installation you do not own. Bad luck.

Does Zenphoto Gallery interfere with other plugins?

To my best knowledge, no. In particular, Zenphoto Gallery uses other shortcodes than other Zenphoto related plugins so you can continue using them for your older posts.

If you find incompatibilities, please let me know.

How can I uninstall the plugin?

Just deactivate and delete it in plugin management. This will also remove all options from database. If you want to keep them, remove wp-content/plugins/zenphoto-gallery manually. Do not forget to delete json.php from your Zenphoto installation.

You are no help here, it does not work!

Please contact me and let me know of your problem.

Can you implement feature X?

Probably. I wanted to keep the number of options as low as possible while achieving as much flexibility as possible — and there are already a lot. You can contact me with your wish and if the same wish is repeated often (by different people, mind) or I immediatly like your idea, I might very well do it, yes. In case I don’t, feel free to manipulate the files yourself. I hope I wrote somewhat clear code (as clear as PHP/HTML/Javascript can get) and commented sufficiently.

How can I help?

You can

  • use Zenphoto Gallery,
  • vote on the WordPress plugin portal for it,
  • report bugs and/or propose ideas for improvement and
  • blog about your experience with it.

16 Comments.

  1. [ zenalbum album=name]

    What if the name is made of many words ?

    Gaston

  2. Visit your album on Zenphoto. You should see the internal name in the URL; take this.

    For me, the name to use is the chosen album name in lower case letters and with spaces replaced by hyphens. I do not know what happens for funky album names, though.

  3. Thanks for this

    I try but dont work

    this is article and wp link
    http://lnx.tonyassante.com/wordpress//le-foto-di-patrizia-di-maio.html

    this is album
    http://lourdespictures.com/anno2010/agosto/patrizia

    i use various links, this is the last
    [zenalbum album=patrizia number=3 link=anno2010|agosto]

    where is my error?

    sorry for my english

  4. First of all, what you give as link attribute is invalid. I am afraid that linking to a parent album is not supported. You have to choose one of album, page, image and none (see above).

    Try album=anno2010/agosto/patrizia
    The plugin takes the album value and appends it to your provided Zenphoto URL, so this should work fine.

    In total, I expect this to work for you:
    [zenalbum album=anno2010/agosto/patrizia number=3 link=album]

    (No need to excuse for English skills, I am non-native myself ;) )

  5. Nothing, doesn’t work: http://lnx.tonyassante.com/wordpress/le-foto-di-patrizia-di-maio.html

    is great a link in admin pannel for taken photo in news… like zen foto short tags
    http://noscope.com/photostream/zp-core/i.php?&a=various&w=600&i=Shorttags_03.png&cw=600&ch=450&cx=1&cy=1

    my WP is 3.0.1.

    [edited for clarity]

  6. The album’s RSS feed (link) does not contain any items. This is no fault of Zenphoto Gallery, but of Zenphoto. Do you have album RSS feeds activated? Which version of Zenphoto are you running?

    I have not tested subalbum behaviour yet, so it might not work even if you get the RSS feed running. But then I might be able to actually to something about it!

    Note that Zenphoto Shorttags and other plugins use Zenphotos code directly, some even access its database. I do not consider this good style because it circumvents quite a bit of security measures. But without that kind of access, it is hard to get a comprehensive global list of images or albums since Zenphoto does not provide any open interface for this (afaik). This means I would have to parse and filter HTML code and follow links in order to present you with an album selection dialogue. Sorry, won’t do that.

    I can imagine to clean up and extend json.php for this; but this is quite a bit down the road.

  7. zenphoto versione 1.2.9 [5088]

    this my version

    now i set rss for last ID

    but rss work
    http://lourdespictures.com/rss.php?lang=it_IT

  8. Yea, this RSS works, the above mentioned does not. The according JSON looks fine, too. What is the plugins output if you do, say, [­zenlatest number=3]?

    I just tried it out on my blog, it works fine. What have you entered as Zenphoto URL? http://lourdespictures.com is the correct setting.

    If you get the album RSS running, we can figure out why it fails (if it fails). I might have made a mistake wrt subalbum handling since I did not explicitly consider subalbums.

    However, as stated on the plugins main page, I can only support Zenphoto version 1.3. I do not know lower versions at all.

  9. This is screenshots for zengallery panel
    http://www.tonyassante.com/zen1.JPG
    http://www.tonyassante.com/zen2.JPG

    and this the code i put in news
    http://www.tonyassante.com/zen3.JPG

    thanks for your help

  10. Settings look fine.

    The RSS stream corresponding to the album is still empty. I cannot do anything for you as long as this is the case, sorry. My plugin cannot show pictures that are not in the feed. Please check your Zenphoto RSS settings. In particular, “Number of RSS feed items:” has to have a non-zero value.

  11. This is a case for Zenphoto support, then, since you clearly have a Zenphoto problem there. Maybe you should do an upgrade?

  12. i try with un upgrade

  13. Now work but
    http://www.tonyassante.com/zen6.JPG

    is possible taken the foto in all part of clip?

    like this is small

    this is config
    http://www.tonyassante.com/zen7.JPG

    another question

    is possible link directly to general album
    http://www.lourdespictures.com/anno2010/ualsi

    in this example
    [zenalbum album=anno2010/ualsi number=6]

    link to last subalbum created into the principal directory

    sorry for disturb

  14. Greater thumbnails: just increase the numbers and/or diable clipping?! Play around with the settings!

    Link to other albums: Is not possible at this time, no.

  15. Please go to the forums at wordpress.org for further discussion.